1. Field of the Technology
The present application relates generally to wireless communication devices which communicate with wireless communication networks such as wireless local area networks (WLANs), and more particularly to network scanning operations when adverse battery conditions are present for such wireless communication devices.
2. Description of the Related Art
A mobile communication device, such as a portable battery-powered wireless communication device, is operative to communicate in wireless communication networks. For example, the mobile device may communicate through wireless access points (APs) of wireless local area networks (WLANs) which operate in accordance with 802.11 standards or the like. When the mobile device is powered-on, or radio frequency (RF) coverage is regained after a coverage loss, the mobile device performs a scanning operation with use of its wireless transceiver to identify one or more available wireless networks in its coverage area. During each scanning operation, the mobile device transmits a probe request to each network identified in one or more network profiles stored in the mobile device, and waits for a probe response from the network in return.
Each time the scanning operation fails to result in any connection between the mobile device and a wireless network, the scanning operation is repeated by the mobile device after delaying for a next delay period selected from a plurality of scanning delay periods n=[n1, n2, . . . , upper limit] of the mobile device. During the scanning delay period, the mobile device is placed into a power conservation mode to reduce consumption of the device's battery. The plurality of scanning delay periods n=[n1, n2, . . . , upper limit] are typically consecutively-increasing delay periods up until the upper limit. One example of a plurality of scanning delay periods is n=[1, 2, 4, 8, 15, 30, and 60 seconds]. This process continually repeats until the mobile device connects with one of the wireless networks, if at all.
Although traditional techniques reduce the power consumption of the mobile device, there is a need for further reducing the power consumption during network scanning operations, especially during adverse battery conditions of the mobile device.